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Styes (on the eyelid) - what did you call them?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jan
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Jan

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Reading through this Birmingham website over the last few days has brought many of my Birmingham memories flooding back.

I had a blast from the past whilst at the Chemist's today when I saw a tube of Golden Eye Ointment. I was really prone to styes when I was little and Golden Eye Ointment was always kept in stock. However, we never called the swelling a stye - it was always a "powk" (not sure of the spelling!)

Did anyone else use this odd term?
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Jan said:
Reading through this Birmingham website over the last few days has brought many of my Birmingham memories flooding back.

I had a blast from the past whilst at the Chemist's today when I saw a tube of Golden Eye Ointment. I was really prone to styes when I was little and Golden Eye Ointment was always kept in stock. However, we never called the swelling a stye - it was always a "powk" (not sure of the spelling!)

Did anyone else use this odd term?
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Jan how about this and Sty (as in Pig) is the right spelling of was we spell as Stye
https://www.drgranny.com/2006/11/08/eye-stye-remedies/

Can't find any reference to Powk
 
Oh my....those god awful stys (not sure whether there is an e) Definitely, also called a powk...nevertheless.. I am a red head by birth and it seemed that fair haired people, especially women were predisposed to experiencing these
painful problems with their eyelids. If I was going to an, important to me, dance or party when I was in my teens I would often find I had a powk coming up on my eyelid. Ghastly, and inevitably disfiguring for a few days.:Aah: I believe that this condition is caused by an infection getting into the edge of the eyelid. Golden Eye ointment was used to help get rid of the sty. I hated getting one of these awful things. I also remember hearing the fairytale about rubbing your eye with a wedding ring. Can't remember if I ever tried that.

I don't know if people are still plagued by powks. I certainly hope not.
 
Yes, definately called a Powke, you dont see many about nowadays but on the rare occasions I, my family or friends have had one I've always rubbed it with a gold ring, sometimes a wedding ring but not always, but it has to be 18 caret, its always worked I swear!:D
 
Jan said:
Reading through this Birmingham website over the last few days has brought many of my Birmingham memories flooding back.

I had a blast from the past whilst at the Chemist's today when I saw a tube of Golden Eye Ointment. I was really prone to styes when I was little and Golden Eye Ointment was always kept in stock. However, we never called the swelling a stye - it was always a "powk" (not sure of the spelling!)

Did anyone else use this odd term?
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[https://www.brownedge.com/local_dialect.php/quote]

Staffordshire term:)
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I was plagued with powks for months the worst it got was when I had three of them at the same time! My left eye had one on both eyelids and my right eye had one on the bottom lid. It didn't stop me going to watch Blues and the reason I remember is as follows.
Because my left eyelids were so badly swollen I could hardly see a thing so I decided to wear an eyepatch which would also protect me from the cold wind. I went to the match and everything was fine until Blues scored and the instant I jumped with joy both my left eye styes burst!
I had some cotton wool behind the eyepatch and it's a good job, have you seen one of those things burst? Not a pretty sight and I'd got two of them.
By the time I got home everything was stuck with dried you know what, but Blues had won so it was worth it.
Finally the funny (peculiar) part of the story. The styes started to appear on my eyes from January onwards and stopped in July of that year. I had never had them before and I've never had any since. My wife found out she was pregnant on the previous 31 December and our son was born in July. Now, was that my 'pregnancy' substitute?
 
Yes here children in particular still get 'pokes' as I knew them as a child in Brum.
The term poke also comes from the same origin as sty = pig in a poke meaning don't buy before seeing it = A poke is a small sack or bag (The sack that holds the fluid or puss you get with a Sty) and is the origin of the word pocket.
Powke is a place in and around West Brom', Sandwell and Cradley Heath: Powke Lane; Powke Hall, West Midlands; Powke Lane Crem'.

Here they are called 'weeping eyes' or 'Sty' and they are infectious, hence you having more than one at a time shavedfish49.
If a child at work gets one, parents are called to take the child home.
Answer to 'The wedding ring' is that it is the gold content that is the cure, just as doctors here give gold injections to people with sever arthritis to help calm down the swelling.

Hope this helps

Pom :angel:
 
Pomgolian. While you called them 'pokes' and many others have said 'powks' I wonder if the pronunciation has been handed down from other areas. You refer Powke to Sandwell, maybe it's a Black Country hand down. Or, simply just the way some of us Brummies speak.
 
Jan said:
Reading through this Birmingham website over the last few days has brought many of my Birmingham memories flooding back.

I had a blast from the past whilst at the Chemist's today when I saw a tube of Golden Eye Ointment. I was really prone to styes when I was little and Golden Eye Ointment was always kept in stock. However, we never called the swelling a stye - it was always a "powk" (not sure of the spelling!)

Did anyone else use this odd term?
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Click to expand...



Thanks for all of the interesting replies - I'm glad it wasn't a case of false memory for me!!

I never thought of searching on the internet for references to powks (doh!) but have just looked and have found the following references to them:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/stoke/voices2005/features/namegenerator.shtml

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/text/print.html?in_article_id=34757&in_page_id=1797

 https://20six.co.uk/lloydd/archiveofmonth/2006/04/00


Like others, I was plagued by powks as a child - my eyes would swell and throb and it seemed to take forever to clear them up. Thankfully, I rarely get them now but if I do there's something strangely comforting about the Golden Eye Ointment remedy!



Jan


 
Hi Alf,

Yes, thanks for that link - it is fascinating. Your link gave me the idea of searching the net for "powk + dialect", hence, the other links I came up with. Isn't it amazing how the internet enables us to share so much so very quickly?

Jan
 
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